


Rest in Peace

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Family, Gen, Haunting, Nightmares, Peace, References to Suicide, ghost - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 12:14:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18549565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: King Roald's restless spirit haunts his descendants.





	Rest in Peace

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Supernatural Week Challenge as part of the Free for All Event at Goldenlake
> 
> Contains references to suicide so please read with discretion.

Rest in Peace

The late March wind howled like the dirge of a restless spirit against the windows of the bedchamber Jon shared with his wife while rain pounded like an irate fist demanding entry on the stone walls. Jon had to remind himself that the palace walls had stood for hundreds of years and were unlikely to crumble in this storm though many trees would fall down in the Royal Forest, and the riding paths would be littered with branches—of that he could be certain. 

At first, he thought it was this raging gale that had awakened him, and he curled closer to Thayet’s warm body as he tried to sink back into sleep. Then he realized he could hear Roald’s crying—he could tell all his children’s crying apart because each sounded unique to him—over the shrieking wind. He frowned, unable to remember the last time Roald, a somber eight, had awakened him and Thayet in the middle of the night. 

“I’ll go see to Roald, my dear,” he whispered into his wife’s ear as she stirred beside him, her soft cheek still pressed against his shoulder. She had only returned from leading a bandit hunt with her Riders that evening and needed her rest more than he did after all. 

Thayet murmured something indistinct that might have been gratitude as he gently shifted her so that she was resting her head entirely on a pile of pillows. She seemed to have drifted back into her dreams as he rose from the bed and went to comfort Roald. 

“Is the storm scaring you, son?” Jon drew a sobbing Roald against his chest as he sat on the boy’s bed. 

“Restless spirits—spirits who died violently and aren’t at peace in the Peaceful Realms—roam the world on stormy nights.” Roald shuddered against Jon. “That’s what the Black God’s priests say.” 

“The restless spirits won’t dare to hurt you while I’m here.” Jon stroked his son’s shaking back, feeling a stab of irritation toward the Black God’s priests for frightening a small boy with their stark theology. “I’m your father, and I’ll protect you from every restless spirit, I promise.” 

“One already came to haunt me, Papa.” Roald’s sniffling suggested he wasn’t soothed by Jon’s vow. “He came to me while I was sleeping. He said his name was Roald too, and that I was him because I was named after him. He said he didn’t want to hurt me, but I was still scared of him.” 

“If he said he didn’t want to hurt you, why were you scared of him?” Jon tried to be rational about his son’s fear even though it sounded anything but rational. 

“I knew he must have been lying.” Roald hesitated before the words came tumbling out of him into Jon’s shoulder. “I knew I must have disturbed his spirit when I want into the crypts.”

“You went into the crypts alone?” Suddenly stern, Jon held his son at arm’s length. “Haven’t your mother and I forbidden you from going there alone?” 

“You have but”—Roald began, and that was all the warning Jon needed to be on guard against his firstborn’s conveniently literal interpretation of rules—“I didn’t go to the crypts alone, Papa. I went with Kally.” 

“That’s even worse, Roald.” Jon’s tone sharpened at Roald’s evasiveness. “You led your younger sister into danger and trouble.” 

“We didn’t think about danger and trouble.” Roald bit his lip in a guilty gesture Jon often saw from him when he reprimanded. His eyes were wet, wide, and earnest blue oceans. “We just thought about the fun and adventure.” 

“I’m your father. It’s my responsibility to think about the danger and trouble, which is why you must obey me.” Jon sighed, recalling how as a boy he had believed that his father existed mainly to squelch his joy by punishing all his attempts at mischief. Wondering if his son perceived him in the same light, he squeezed Roald’s shoulders as he went on, “You and Kally could’ve been injured in the crypts, and it could’ve taken hours for anyone to find you in the dark. I give orders for a reason, not because I want to ruin your fun.” 

“Yes, Papa.” Roald ducked his head, fingers fretting at his blanket. “Am I to be punished?” 

Jon swallowed a second sigh as he studied his now properly penitent son. Deciding that Roald’s nightmare had been sufficient punishment, he answered after a moment’s consideration, “Your guilty conscience haunted your dreams. I think that is punishment enough. Now go to sleep. Your ghost was nothing more than a guilty conscience. You should sleep well now that you’ve confessed your crime.” 

“I can’t sleep.” Roald’s chin trembled. “The ghost will come back to me in my dreams.” 

“Not if I spell you into a dreamless sleep.” Jon placed tender hands around his son’s temples. “Shall I magic you to sleep, Roald?” 

“Yes, please.” Roald nodded, a yawn escaping him as Jon’s Gift gathered where fingertips met temples. “Would you keep the candles lit after I fall asleep?” 

“Of course,” Jon reassured his son as the boy slipped into slumber, eyelids shutting fast as yanked curtains. “Sleep well.” 

Back in the bed he shared with Thayet, Jon wished he could magic himself to sleep as easily as he had his son. He tossed and turned, wondering if his father was equally restless in the cold Conte crypts. 

“Are ants crawling in your nightshirt?” Thayet’s hiss in his ear told him that his fitfulness had managed to awaken her. 

“Do you believe that restless spirits can haunt their namesakes?” Jon asked her, frowning as he remembered that the spirits of suicides were supposed to be restless and never intended to be buried in hallowed ground. The Black God’s priests prohibited it, and Jon had needed to lie to the realm about his father’s death being an accident to ensure that he was laid to rest in the Conte crypts. Only it seemed he wasn’t resting, after all, and the Black God couldn’t be tricked as simply as the priests who served this dark deity.

“No, but I do believe mages who are too smart for their own good can drive themselves and their wives sleepless seeing the supernatural everywhere.” Thayet’s kiss on his furrowed forehead removed any sting from her comment. 

Ashamed of his own folly and fear of a man who had been sealed in a tomb for years, Jon promised to let him and his wife sleep. His rest was undisturbed but the same did not seem to be true of Roald, who was silent as a grave at breakfast. 

“Did you get any sleep after I left your room last night?” Jon summoned his son to his side and gazed at the purple bags that hung like bruises beneath Roald’s eyes with worry. 

“Yes.” Roald shuffled his feet and stared at the carpet. “The ghost came back after you magicked me to sleep, Papa, but I was the ghost. I had a son named Jonathan who looked like me.” 

“You’ll sleep better tonight.” Jon ruffled his son’s hair, telling himself that the boy would be so tired by the time evening rolled around that he couldn’t help but sleep dreamlessly. The mercy of exhaustion was its inevitable oblivion. “Run along to your lessons now. You don’t want to keep your tutor waiting.” 

“Yes, Papa.” Roald bowed and dashed off to attend his lessons. 

After that, Roald didn’t speak of any more nightmares though the bags under his eyes seemed to grow rather than to diminish every morning. Reports that he was often unfocused, drifting out of attention as an uncared for instrument would slip out of tune, during his lessons came from his tutor who couldn’t comprehend how his dutiful charge had become so absent-minded of late. 

Determined to get to the bottom of what was bothering his son—hoping that it was something as benign and banal as the spring rains that had grayed the sky every day for a week—Jon decided to invite Roald on a ride as soon as a silver of sunshine shone through the clouds. 

“The rains have stopped.” Jon waved at the parlor window as soon as he noticed that the rains had abated one afternoon after Roald’s lessons were complete for the day. “Shall we go for a ride together, Roald?” 

“No, thank you.” Roald, who had always loved to ride, shook his head so rapidly Jon worried he would dizzy himself. “In my last dream, I died in a riding accident. It was scary.” 

“You aren’t going to die in a riding accident, Roald.” Jon had to struggle to prevent the shakiness from entering his tone. His son needed his firmness—his control—more than ever. At last he believed that Roald was haunted by the restless spirit of the man for whom he had been named. He berated himself for being so slow to trust his son’s words and his own instincts when he knew how the restless dead could rise from the Conte crypts. Roger, after all, had refused to remain dead the first time he was buried. “You stay here and play with your siblings. I’m going to the crypts.” 

He had to stop his father’s ghost from haunting his son even if he didn’t know how he would accomplish such a feat. Leaving his gaping son and the royal quarters behind him, he descended what felt like an endless loop of spiral staircases into the cold darkness of the Conte crypts. Lighting his path through the marble tombs with blue globes of his Gift that gave his own face an almost ghostly cast, he walked on numb legs that thankfully didn’t stumble to his father’s monument. 

He stared at the name carved into the tomb and let his father’s presence—restless as Roald had said—fill him before he sent the spirit haunting his son a severe thought: “Leave my boy alone. You’re tormenting him.”

“I don’t want to torment him.” Father sounded pained as if he were dying again—this time, more painfully and at Jon’s hands. “I want to be part of him. He is my namesake after all.” 

“Your spirit lives within him.” Jon tried to impress on his father how much Roald’s desire for peace and devotion to following the letter of the law reminded him so much of his father that it could break his heart if he let it. “You don’t need to haunt his dreams.” 

“I’m happy he takes after me and that I don’t need to haunt his dreams.” Father’s spirit was fading from the air—Jon could feel the aching absence in his skin and bones. “I will let all of us rest in peace.” 

Jon felt a final, affectionate rustling in his hair before his father’s spirit vanished, leaving him and his son with the promise of peace.


End file.
